making photographic books, pamphlets &c

[removed account4]

does anyone else here make photographic books ?
i don't really mind if you made them by hand or had them made by iphotobooks or blurb or flickr
a binding put on by a copy shop or its a flip book made by your online printer ...

i have usually made them by hand ... making the covers and pages and stitching them ...
the last one i did i didn't do by hand but i arranged the pages and had my printer
make a spiral binding for me. it was a gift for friends i helped get into the guinness book of world records.
(they made the largest meatball in the world weighing in over 72lbs they retained the record for a few years ).

what about you?
make any books ?
( books of just photographs, or words and photos, or "artist books" or pamphlets or ? )

 

[Mike Crawford]

Yup!

Very much into making books, either using Blurb or by hand, printing digitally, folding, stitching etc. Really enjoyed a year's course doing bookbinding at evening class. (Morley College for London members; highly recommended.) Just starting work on some new ones and for one am going to get a local printer, (non photographic) to make the double sided pages on large sheets, which will be cut down, folded, collated, trimmed and stitched with hand made covers. Or that's the plan.

While I really like Blurb, and can get very good matches to my files, am always a bit disappointed with the colour shifts in BW files in final repro. Anyone used any similar on line suppliers with better neutrality for black and white?

I find small books such a good way to show work and even to think about a project mid term.

 

[removed account4]

hi mike

are you making open spine or closed spine books ?

i had a project in mind that i was going to go to a xerox place too
and make tiny reductions ... and make a series of small books like that...

one of my great grandparents wedding albums is this tiny groups of thumbnail images
its just beautiful ...

have fun with your project !

john

 

[ParkerSmithPhoto]

Most of the pro labs offer Press Printed Products, which are all printed by HP Digital Indigo printers (or something similar). These machines can print a beautiful continuous tone image on a variety of paper stocks. We've used them for years to print short run custom stationery and Christmas cards. Clients love it.

I use it to make four across folded booklets (8 images total front and back) for use as marketing pieces. Mini-pamphlet:

 

[gone]

We did our own layout and type using something called Microsoft Publisher when we put out a small art publication called "Island Profiles" back on the Big Island years ago. It worked really well, although it was a bit quirky to figure out in the beginning.

If I were doing a real "art" book now, and not a profile of other artists like we published, I would do everything by hand and use sewn signatures and have someone book bind it. Spiral bindings are convenient and inexpensive, but there's nothing like a sewn signature approach that is put together using traditional book binding techniques. Or, I would bind it by hand. I like a rough, irregular, hand made way of putting things together. Anything to avoid a machine made look.

 

[removed account4]

i am always amazed these days at the quality of both ink and the press printed products ( labs offer ) & pod like ibook, blurb &c.
its nice people take advantage of these things because books are such a nice way to present photographs and writing
and you don' have to make 40,000 books just to make a handful like it was only a few years ago. i know writers who have thousands of
self published novels &c in their garage ... what a pain ..

i've had books made by whcc over the years ( wedding albums and spiral bound books of prints mailers &c )
they do a nice job! ( but it ain't cheap ! )
i'm fond of whole hands on aspect of gluing and stitching and making something by hand from beginning to end
sort of like making black and white prints.

its nice there are options -

 

[pdeeh]

I had a brief flirtation with the idea of producing zines of pictures, using Scribus to make print-ready files to send to the printer.

I got the idea from seeing what this chap had done (see here http://fistfulofbooks.com/)

We exchanged emails about getting something going collaboratively but unfortunately I ran out of money, creativity and impetus to pursue it to completion, but I still think it's a neat idea. The quality is never going to be like that of a properly made photobook, but you can produce large print runs at fairly low unit cost and either sell them cheap or even give them away if you've the mind to.

Even in the UK, there seem to be plenty of small printers who can run this kind of zine work, so I'd expect in the larger US cities there'll be a plethora.

A nice way to expose your work to public view, though, if you haven't got too many pretensions.

 

[Mike Crawford]

hi mike

are you making open spine or closed spine books ?

i had a project in mind that i was going to go to a xerox place too
and make tiny reductions ... and make a series of small books like that...

one of my great grandparents wedding albums is this tiny groups of thumbnail images
its just beautiful ...

have fun with your project !

john

Now I'll have to think about the difference between the two. Is open spine a (single signature) stitched folio, otherwise a collection of folded sheets stitched down the spine, while closed stitch being single sheets (not folded) bound together? (Perfect bound.) Done both at bookbinding class but am now going to concentrate on the former. Also, can be done without presses and will be using softcover instead of casebound hard back. Taking inspiration from the like of....
http://www.redfoxpress.com/new.html
Got a few of their books and really like their use of laser and inkjet with hand binding. Just got the Berlin one from this series:
http://www.polamad.com/polazine1.html

Like Mr Iluvmykam, they use some good spiral binding;
http://www.polamad.com/polaroidcollection.html

I seem to have been buying more small press and zines in the last couple of years than new photobooks (more affordable!) such as these beauties;
http://akinabooks.com/balkan-pank/
http://www.highchair-editions.co.uk/#/client/template.xml?aaa=portfolio/69583

Do fancy getting a Xerox or probably a laser printer, but better perfect my stitching and cutting skills first!

 

[Mike Crawford]

I got the idea from seeing what this chap had done (see here http://fistfulofbooks.com/)

Thanks for the link, interesting work.

 

[Mike Crawford]

Sure. I am a very large producer of hand printed artists' books. Hand print books and they become works of art. I've done many hundred books. They are in a number of pubic collections around the world.

A signature feature in my books is incorporating archival interleaf into the binding.

http://portfolioartistsbook.tumblr.com/image/70388454832

I used P.O.D. and hated the quality. I've done a few hardcovers that I hand printed, but what I like best is to hand print and spiral bind. I've also used wet prints dry mounted back to back and spiral bind, but it is very time consuming trying to do big editions like that.

nsfw

http://portfolioartistsbook.tumblr.com/

http://bikermardigras.tumblr.com/

http://twentysixroadkills.tumblr.com/

http://encyclopediainkjetmedia.tumblr.com/

Nice thing about spiral books is the book can be unbound, original prints framed and displayed, they you can rebind it in a couple of minutes and the book serves 2 purposes.

BTW, the Encyclopedia is the largest set of hand printed artists' book in the world from what I can tell.

More good creative work, thanks for the links. Wish I could be so productive!

 

[bill h]

Hi John,
I've had several false starts making handmade books of real prints, but the scope always outran the ambition/time, and albums don't seem to satisfy, but I've had good luck with lulu and blurb over the years both black and white and color. They are after all just books, not real prints. In fact I uploaded one yesterday to blurb as a gift in honor of a daughter's birthday. All black and white except one lonely color snapshot.
I want things that people can handle freely.
-bill

 

[removed account4]

Hi John,
I've had several false starts making handmade books of real prints, but the scope always outran the ambition/time, and albums don't seem to satisfy, but I've had good luck with lulu and blurb over the years both black and white and color. They are after all just books, not real prints. In fact I uploaded one yesterday to blurb as a gift in honor of a daughter's birthday. All black and white except one lonely color snapshot.
I want things that people can handle freely.
-bill

hi bill

i know what you mean. takes time + sometimes it is a daunting task to deal with assembling a book. it is good to read
you like the other alternatives. i have seen some nice examples of things made by blurb. perfect for passing around and letting people enjoy

if you want to try making books again, i'd suggest a stab binding ( japanese binding ).
it is simple compared to closed spine or hemp stitched &c books. the hardest part
is gluing the cover cloth onto the coverstock. other than that it is pretty simple

another option is to make a folio ... its like a book cover without a book in it !
so you take your cover stock and put it down on the cloth, with a gap between the boards.
you fold and glue the cloth down. glue some sort of end papers the whole length ( marble you own paper? make photographs just for the end papers &c )
but before you glue the end paper down put some ribbon down on both sides...
when everything is dry, put your prints inside, tie the ribbons and enjoy

years ago i presented a local city and the city's library a folio of 40-60 ( sorry i don't remember how many it was )
4x5 contact prints of a city block that was being torn down. it included street views, single architectural views/elevations &c
as well as portraits of the people who worked there ( and the businesses running ) so when the 150+ year old site was razed,
and xyz store was built in its place there would be some sort of visual record of the area. they loved the folios ,, and loved being able
to take the images out, look at them individually &c ... i kept a 3rd one for myself, but unfortunately our friendly mover decided to grab it when we moved.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

I have never really been a fan of POD since by it's nature the result is rather pedestrian. That is the point to it though. It gives everyone the ability to make a book which makes every book look just like everyone else's. I never thought the printing quality was all that great either. It is OK for some things, but for showing your work, meh.

The best way to make a book that is reasonable seems to be to make it with a really good laser printer. I have picked up a few of those over the years, and while they aren't as good as one from a quality press, they aren't bad.

I have wanted a real press for the longest time to do things like photogravure and etchings but presses are always either too big or too small or too heavy and almost always too expensive. Making books with a process such as that would be worthwhile, although time consuming. I recently saw a bottle jack press and instantly knew I had to make one as it seems to be the perfect solution. One of these days.

Here is a blog that exists for the sole purpose of showing independently made books. Worth your while if you are interested in such things.

http://theindependentphotobook.blogspot.com/

 

[MartinP]

Sure. I am a very large producer of hand printed artists' books.

Aren't those on the website link printed digitally using an inkjet? Or at least that is what one of the examples says on the title page.

For special occasions I've made, and given as gifts, some collections of black-and-white prints mounted in to 300g/sq.m watercolour-paper booklets - the sort of thing used while out-and-about, for watercolour 'sketching'. The Fabriano ones are convenient to use, having very stiff covers with a wide spring binding that allows room for the prints, and a precut aperture in the front cover for a title shot. Another maker, Windsor & Newton, also make similar spiralbound books but they have a perforated-page for easy removal, which suits the watercolour artist but doesn't help in photo-albums.

 

[removed account4]

i think it is great that so many things are being democratized like book making ..
made via ink or through companies like lulu or blurb, or made one at a time the old fashioned way ..
its great to see others thinking of books as a way to present images, with or without text ...
its a nice way to "finish" a project ..